Baseball Bats

Quick: What brand of bat does Kirby Puckett use?

 

 

1993 Topps #200, Kirby Puckett

 

No doubt you noticed that he's a Louisville Slugger guy. And even though we're talking about a novelty bat here, you can't blame Puck and the Louisville Slugger folks for making sure the trademark shows front and center. Nice piece of marketing.

A card like this made me think about other bat brands that were around back when I was a baseball-loving kid. It also made me start a list in my mind of which players from that era were known for using a certain brand of bat. And then naturally, as a baseball card collector, I wondered if the trademarks ever appeared clearly on trading cards. After all, lots of players hold a bat for their photo, either resting it on their shoulder or posing in a batting stance. Making sure the trademark is showing would be a nice gesture toward the company that's sponsoring you and sending you all those free bats.

So once I finished compiling that list of bat brands—and players who seemed synonymous with the brand—I did some baseball card research. Here's what I came up with.

 

1992 Upper Deck All-Star FanFest #13 Wade Boggs, 1992 Topps #620 George Brett, 1992 Barry Colla #1 Tony Gwynn

Back in the '80s and '90s, Louisville Slugger was the big man on campus. Lots of hitters preferred Louisville lumber, including the trio above, who were some of the hittingest hitters who ever did hit. I'm pretty sure my first Little League bat was an aluminum Louisville Slugger, too. They were just everywhere.

 

 

 

 

1985 Topps #500 Mike Schmidt, 1987 Donruss Highlights #54 Mark McGwire, 1988 Pacific Cards & Comics #5 Darryl Strawberry

 

Many folks might think of baseball gloves when they think of the Rawlings company, but some pretty iconic bats also bore the Rawlings name. Some of the biggest power hitters of the era used the "Adirondack Big Stick" model, including the three bashers above. (Reggie Jackson, too!)

 

The paint ring that Rawlings added toward the top of the bat handle was usually color-matched to the player's team as well. That's a nice touch. (Also, "Adirondack Big Stick" is a great name for a bat, don't you think?)

 

 

 

 

1989 Upper Deck #364 Cecil Fielder, 1988 Leaf #114 Tim Raines, 1990 Upper Deck #356 Andres Galarraga

 

Some players believed Cooper's bats, cut from Canadian trees, were made from harder wood, potentially generating more power. You can usually spot these bats on baseball cards by the little blue-red-yellow stripe around the handle. Not surprisingly, it seems like the Cooper company had more influence on Expos and Blue Jays players of the day, like Fielder, Raines, and Galarraga up there.

 

 

 

 

1992 Stadium Club #810 Andre Dawson, 1992 Barry Colla #1 Frank Thomas, 1990 Mother's Cookies #3 Jose Canseco

 

Worth bats also seemed popular with some big hitters of the era. That double-stripe around the handle will help you identify the brand on baseball cards. Jose Canseco is hiding the stripes over there to the right, but he gives us a good look at the "WORTH" wordmark on the sweet spot.

 

 

2005 Bowman #95 Ichiro Suzuki, 1991 Showcase Baseball Card Price Guide Inserts #2 Rickey Henderson,
1985 Renata Galasso NNO Pete Rose

And finally, we've got Mizuno. Years before Ichiro gave the Japanese sporting goods manufacturer loads of publicity here in the USA, lacing hits all over the field and setting records with his trademark Mizuno bats, a couple of other legends of the game were giving them a go. Rickey used Mizuno bats in the early '90s (those neon green batting gloves were Mizuno, as well), and Pete Rose was a Mizuno guy during his second stint with the Reds in the mid-1980s. Want to know how many MLB hits those three guys have between them? 

 

10,400.

 

How's that for a ringing endorsement?

 

 

And I think that covers the major bat brands that were around in the '80s and '90s. If I've missed any, feel free to share in the comment section. Also feel free to answer the following question:

 

What brand of bat did the favorite player(s) of your childhood use?

 

All This Custom Card Needs Are Some Tasty Waves and a Cool Buzz

Ah, high school in Southern California, 1982. The mall. The retail jobs. The beach. The friends. The high jinks.

You could say they were fast times.

And although that wasn't my personal high school experience, there was a certain film released that same year which documented things fairly accurately. Or maybe not so accurately. Regardless, I felt the film and its major players needed a custom card.

 

 

 

As you might have already guessed, it's Fast Times at Ridgemont High!

 

You can't deny the big acting names up there. Sean Penn. Judge Reinhold. And do I even have to mention Phoebe Cates? The red bikini scene? Shopping malls everywhere must have been selling out of her posters on a weekly basis back in '82.

 

As for the character arrangement, Jeff Spicoli had to have the center position, of course. Brad Hamilton needed a spot on the bottom in order to accommodate his burger-flipping hat. Then I figured his little sister would be happy alongside him. That meant the top spots were open for Linda and Mike. 

 

I even thought about adding history teacher Mr. Hand to the card, squeezing him along the bottom between the Hamiltons. (One of the original 1963 Topps baseball cards does include six players.) However, I decided against it because things just looked a little crowded down there. Besides, Mr. Hand is a total downer compared to the rest of the crew.

 

To get back to some fun facts, this little subset of custom cards based on the '63 design is now three deep. The first card in the set featured the brave (or not-so-brave) knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The second card showed the fab five from The Breakfast Club. With the third card complete, they're looking pretty good next to each other in a binder.

Here's a peek at the card back.

 

 

 

 

I used the stat line again, which provides some interesting data about the film. Overall, Fast Times did pretty well at the box office, considering it had to contend with blockbusters like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Rocky III. 

Now here's a little clip of Mr. Spicoli in action. (It helps explain the title of this blog post, too.)

 

 

Life's not that hard, right?

 

How about all of you? Can you relate to any of the zany experiences depicted in Fast Times? Did you have a teacher like Mr. Hand? Did you ever have a pizza delivered to your school, during class? If so, you've got to share the story here.

 

Thanks for reading, as always!

A Smorgasbord! Farmland Dairies/Junior Mets Club

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

It's Friday night, July 7th, 1989, and the Mets have just closed out the Cincinnati Reds at Shea Stadium by a score of 7–1. Sid Fernandez had the complete-game victory, and it keeps the Mets within 3.5 games of the first-place Montreal Expos. (Dad let you stay up for the whole game.) And even better, the next day at the local baseball fields, your friend—who's a Yankees fan—trades a few Mets cards to you, and he even throws in this beat-up beauty for free.

 

 

 

1989 Farmland Dairies/Junior Mets Club NNO Gregg Jefferies

"Ohh!" You exclaim, despite your confusion about what exactly you're holding in your hand. You look over at your buddy, who's more focused on flipping through the Yankees cards you gave him, so in an instant you go through the card manufacturers in your mind:

 

It's not Topps. It's not Fleer, Donruss, Score, or Upper Deck, either. It's definitely not those extra-large Bowman cards that came out earlier this year. It sure as heck isn't Sportflics. It's not even Sports Illustrated for Kids, for goodness sake. But it doesn't matter. You just can't hide your excitement when you look at the guy on the front of the card.

You see, back in 1989, Gregg Jefferies was the big name to collect—especially for kids in New York. (How many of you readers, New Yorkers or not, can still see an image of the 1989 Topps "Future Stars" Gregg Jefferies card in your minds?) 

 

And the fact that your buddy just threw this card into the trade for free is icing on the cake.

You flip it over, hoping you'll find some more information printed on the card back.

 

 

It's a Junior Mets Club card, sponsored by Farmland Dairies! Your mom buys that brand of milk all the time. (You run to the fridge as soon as you get home to see if there are any Mets players on the milk carton itself, but no such luck.)

At the time, Farmland was doing pretty well as a regional brand, however. They'd been around since 1914 in New Jersey, back when the milkman delivered glass bottles of milk and cream by horse and wagon to local subscribers. By the 1970s Farmland was known to be on the cutting edge of producing milk without the use of artificial hormones, which is a rather nice feather in their cap.

These days, they're known as Farmland Fresh Dairies, and if you live in many areas of the US, you might recognize their distinctive branding:

 

Seems like they're still quite determined to produce fresh, clean, hormone-free dairy as well. Good for them.

 

Unfortunately, Farmland only teamed up with the Junior Mets Club for three years—1987 through 1989—so there really weren't too many cards to add to your collection. (It seems like a 9-card perforated panel was issued for Junior Mets members during those years, including other great names of the time like Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, and Keith Hernandez.) Junior Mets members also received a bunch of other stuff back then, like a binder, a season schedule, some discount coupons to upcoming Mets games, and even a Junior Mets/Farmland digital watch.

It sure was fun to be a young baseball fan back then!

But let's get back to Gregg Jefferies for a moment. A lot of folks nowadays consider him a one-time prospect who fizzled out, but that's not a fair assessment at all. Mr. Jefferies had an excellent Major League career. Across 14 seasons, he put up 1593 hits, 300 doubles, 27 triples, 126 home runs, 663 RBI, 196 stolen bases, and a slash line of .289/.344/.421. He was also a 2x all-star, and cracked the top-10 in National League batting average for three consecutive seasons (1993–1995).

 

Back in 1989, however? Yeah, us kids just knew that Jefferies would be even more than that.

 

Anyone remember some other big rookies who never quite filled the enormous shoes that the media and baseball world created for them?

 

What about your regional milk brand when you were growing up?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

Pro Baseball, Hot Dogs, and Fireworks on the 4th

Fun story:

 

A couple of days before the July 4th holiday, one of my wife's good friends from Manhattan came to stay with us on Long Island for a few days. The week prior, we started thinking about what fun things we could do with her, and created a list of restaurants, vineyards, and attractions. One of those attractions involved baseball.

 

We don't live that far from the local minor league team—the Long Island Ducks—and we figured we'd see if the team was on a homestand. It turned out that not only were they at home, but they were playing on the 4th. And there would be a fireworks display after the game!

 

Baseball, hot dogs, and a fireworks show on the 4th? Absolutely.

Even though our friend is not a baseball fan, she was was excited. She'd only been to one game in her life, at Yankee Stadium, and that was about 20 years ago.

Well, game day arrived. We easily made it to the stadium, found parking (for free!), and got to our seats in a jiffy. There are only about 6,000 seats in the park, so even though we weren't at field level, our view was fantastic. 

 

Look here:

 

 

The Ducks opened up an early lead against their opponent, the Charleston Dirty Birds, and the capacity crowd was impressively engaged. As we continued to watch, we answered any questions that our friend had about baseball, and she gradually picked up on the uniqueness of the sport. By the 5th or 6th inning, after more observation and conceptualizing, she turned to us and made the following comment, which I think you'll agree is packed with much insight and wisdom:

Hitting a baseball is really hard.

 

Amen to that!

 

The game continued. And you know what? Although I haven't followed professional baseball very much over the past few years, I definitely recognized the names of a few players as the lineup turned over. And because this is a trading card blog, here they are, in the familiar scale of 2.5 x 3.5 inches:

 

 

2017 Topps Heritage Delino DeShields #648, 2016 Topps Heritage Jackie Bradley Jr. #91,
2020 Topps Heritage Chance Sisco #357

 

DeShields was in the starting lineup for the Dirty Birds, while Bradley and Sisco started for the Ducks.

 

I have to admit that I wasn't sure what level of minor league ball we were watching, but knew that all three players were in the majors not long ago. (Bradley Jr. was a gold glover and World Series champ in 2018!) 

 

It turns out the Ducks are part of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, a 10-team league that "offers an open classification of play, the highest level of professional baseball other than Major League Baseball. . . . Atlantic League clubs pay players to win baseball games, not apprentice in baseball’s developmental levels."

Interesting. So I suppose if DeShields, Bradley, and Cisco are trying to make their way back to the big leagues, the ALPB would be a decent option.

In any case, the game continued, all three of us had a hot dog (with sauerkraut), and day turned to dusk. The field looked pretty sharp with the lights on.

 

 

 

Charleston mounted a comeback, getting to within one run thanks to a Ducks error and an absolute moon shot home run from a big first baseman named Keon Barnum. But the Ducks were able to hold it together for the win.

It made the fireworks all the more fun for the home crowd. A bunch of the players sat on the field and watched with their families too, which was a nice touch.

 

 

 

All in all, great seats and great entertainment for about $25 a ticket. 

How about you readers and collectors? If you've got a minor league team nearby, have you ever gone to a game? How have your experiences been?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!